Stuff Digital Edition

Last of the NZ Olympic team of 1948

Olympian b October 31, 1925 d July 9, 2021

Ngaire Galloway, who has died aged 95, was until her death New Zealand’s oldest living Olympian, having represented her country as a swimmer at the 1948 Games in London.

For six years in a row, from 1944-49, she won the national titles for the 100-yard and 220-yard backstroke, five New Zealand records in the process.

The pinnacle of her swimming career was her selection at the age of 22 for the first Olympics since the 1936 Games in Berlin. Within a New Zealand squad of just seven, she was the only woman and only swimmer.

The team spent six weeks travelling to Britain by ship. Ngaire Lane, as she then was, finished second in her first heat for the 100m backstroke at the Games, but came seventh in the semifinal and finished with the 11th-fastest overall time for the event.

She then won a bronze medal as part of an Australasian team in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the Continental Relay Gala, held at the end of the Olympic swim meet.

She was born in Cambridge, Waikato, moving with her family to Dunedin in 1935 and attending Otago Girls’ High School.

Taking up swimming from a young age, Ngaire specialised in backstroke and began setting records as a teenager.

At the 1940 New Zealand Swimming Association Championships she was the junior champion in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, and 100-yard backstroke – setting a New Zealand record in the last.

It was to be the start of a decade of dominance in the pool, at one point holding national records in the junior, intermediate and senior categories at the same time.

Despite her success, she called time on competitive swimming in 1949 after she married Ken Galloway – with the couple moving to Nelson in 1950, where Ken set up a medical practice.

Along with raising five children, Ngaire was also the duty nurse and secretary for the medical practice in Hardy St.

Daughter Jill said while they knew their mother had been an Olympian, it was a topic very rarely talked about.

‘‘She was extremely humble. She sank her life into being a doctor’s wife . . . so her persona of being a mother and matriarch to our family overrode by far her past of being an Olympian.

‘‘It seemed to me to be a blip, something she did when she was younger. What I always felt of her was this amazing matriarch who kept everybody together.’’

Ngaire’s son Paul said that, in his conversations with his mother about the Olympics, what had mattered most to her was the camaraderie rather than the competition.

‘‘She wasn’t there to beat anybody –

‘‘The things she said she remembered most vividly, because it was 1948 and not long after the war, was the sense of community ... of all of those nations coming together and just enjoying themselves.’’

Son Paul Galloway

she was there to go and do her best, and if she beats everybody and gets a medal, then so be it.

‘‘The things she said she remembered most vividly, because it was 1948 and not long after the war, was the sense of community. The opening and closing ceremonies were probably the highlight of the whole thing for her – the sense of all of those nations coming together and just enjoying themselves.’’

A

fter the Olympics, Ngaire remained close to other members of the New Zealand team. She also became best friends with British swimmer Helen Yate, with whom she trained and competed against in the backstroke events.

Jill said that, while no longer in competitive sport after 1949, her mother’s Olympian drive continued to touch all aspects of her life.

‘‘She said she never had a competitive spirit. My gosh, it might not have been competitive, but she had this desire to strive, to succeed. If she was going to do something, she did it really well.’’

Over the years her mother was always taking up new challenges, becoming a skilled seamstress and woodworker.

In 1980 she qualified as a justice of the peace, acting as a wedding celebrant and serving as a judicial officer in the court. She was elected as the first female president of the Nelson branch of the Justices of the Peace Association in 1987.

In her later years she remained mentally sharp, reading five books a week well into her 90s. ‘‘She was incredibly widely read,’’ Jill said. ‘‘And she had a love of rugby; she’d remember the names of all the players, all the All Blacks.’’

Jill said it wasn’t until she was 46 and found a scrapbook full of her mother’s swimming achievements that she began to understand her impact as an athlete.

‘‘It was absolutely overwhelming to sit down and read it – she was like Lady Di.

‘‘She was a bit of an idol to the age group that was being raised at that time, as a role model to other females, that you can do it if you tried.’’

Paul said that, while his mother was a great egalitarian, it was also clear she was an exceptionally gifted natural athlete. ‘‘It was probably in the early 90s, I got her back to the pool after she literally hadn’t swum for about 10 years. She gets in the pool and swims a kilometre, just like that.’’

Jill said that, although Ngaire was best-known for her individual athletic achievements, to the very end she always put other people first.

‘‘I don’t think she passed on to us any competitive nature – it was always about the team, always about the family. Almost her last words were ‘Now we are all together’.’’ –

Obituaries

en-nz

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/283824331584042

Stuff Limited